


TTEOTL

by Lasgalendil



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Captain America: First Vengeance (Comics), Catholic Steve Rogers, Epistolary, Gay Bucky Barnes, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Letters, Love Letters, M/M, Minor Character Death, POV Bucky Barnes, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-18 20:26:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18126080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasgalendil/pseuds/Lasgalendil
Summary: “...[T]he intent of TTEOTL is still unclear, but its first known appearance occurs in this missive from a soldier at Camp McCoy to his sweetheart in Brooklyn circa 1942. [The acronym] continued to be used throughout the war. Sadly, like all telegram codes, TTEOTL faded with the decline of the telegraph, its meaning forever unknown. It remains now only a quirk of history to vex the curious collector or career historian.”





	TTEOTL

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Thirteen Letters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2689091) by [dropdeaddream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dropdeaddream/pseuds/dropdeaddream), [WhatAreFears](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatAreFears/pseuds/WhatAreFears). 



 Sugar,

  
Told you Iʼd write everyday I can. Youʼll have to forgive me I got a head start and donʼt you dare start bitching about the stamp. I ainʼt there to hear it, and I’d ignore you besides. Iʼll be making $31 a month from here on out, doll, and youʼll be set up good even if I get my dumb ass killed. Beccaʼs my next of kin, and sheʼs promised to look out for you, do right by you if the worse comes to it. Got a last will and testament and everything all set up. Didnʼt want to hand this to you cause if I did I damn well wouldʼve started blubbering right there in the station and I canʼt have the fellas seeing that. Iʼm in the fucking army now.

But you ainʼt, so you can have yourself a good little cry. So hereʼs a dollar cause youʼll just get yourself something cheap and nasty and you deserve the best moneyʼs got to buy. You go down to the grocerʼs, and you get yourself the nicest bottle of whiskey they got on stock, and I mean a real bourbon or a scotch none of that cheap shit. You go home and you get good and drunk and have yourself a good cry. And I fucking mean it, you know Iʼm a ham. Youʼd better make it a damn good one. Real convincing. You gotta cry for the both of us cause I wonʼt get a chance.  
  
Want you to lay there in our bed, sweetheart, sheets dirty with the mingled scent of us. You get the vaseline from under the mattress and you touch yourself. Your artist hands are so goddamn beautiful, want you to know how good you feel, how good you are to me. You rub your pretty pink little tits until theyʼre so full and hard theyʼre aching, then you slick your hand up and fuck yourself all nice and slow. You take your time, you hear? I know you think it lets you down but Iʼm pretty fond of that body you got, sugar. You treat it like itʼs the most goddamn precious thing in the whole fucking world. Put your face down on our pillow, and you tease your pink little cunt, open yourself up one slow finger at a time. You find that spot that makes your legs spread and your back go all soft and shivery like Iʼm there inside you, touching you all over skin on skin. Rub yourself off against the sheets, sweetheart. Come with my name on your lips. You gotta come for me, okay? I ainʼt gonna be there to get you off and itʼs a goddamn shame somebody as pretty as youʼs gotta spend tonight alone.

* * *

 

Ainʼt I always say sweetheart, ain't I always say Iʼd take you out West someday, go take a look at America. Fix ourselves up an old car, or ride the rails like a coupla hobos. Donʼt feel fair me getting to see it without you.

* * *

Met a fella on the train. His sweetheart sent a picture, real handsome colored girl. Sheʼs up in Harlem. It ainʼt Brooklyn but itʼll do. God knows what Iʼd do to have one of you.

* * *

  
Sugar,

You asked about the army and I gotta tell you, there ainʼt much to tell. Youʼd fucking hate it here. Gotta get up on time, make your bed. Run at the asscrack of dawn, all before breakfast. Itʼs a lot of standing around saluting and yes sir, no sir. Bunch of chickenshits.

You gotta help me, sweetheart, Iʼm going goddamn crazy. Did more for Uncle Sam unloading at the dock yard than I do here marching in circles or moving rocks.

* * *

Wonʼt sleep tonight. Havenʼt slept much since I Ieft home. Never could seem to sleep without you there next to me. I canʼt hear you breathing, sweetheart, and it scares the shit outta me.

* * *

I gotta say, sugar, Iʼm the goddamn luckiest guy in the whole damn world. Guys here in the barracks think Iʼm a right bastard, stringing along a bunch of dames like that. Told them I was rationed and they said I was a filthy fucking liar. So I told ‘em Iʼve got a girl in every borough, stupid sons of bitches believed me. Donʼt believe you write me every day. I don’t. Dunno what I ever did to deserve you, stubborn punk.

* * *

Wisconsinʼs cold, Sugar. Canʼt feel my feet half the time. Foodʼs alright, so thatʼs something. Our Sarge is a right sumbitch, though, and you Army censors can suck my dick. God knows I need it. Nights are lonely. Think of you, your sweet little mouth, those electric blue eyes staring up at me. Wish you could see yourself through my eyes, sweetheart. Youʼre so goddamned beautiful when youʼre full of me.

* * *

 

Iʼll be home soon, sweetheart. Wish I could make an honest woman outta you. Take you down to the court house, take you home and fuck you real good and slow. Or to church. I ainʼt religious, and maybe your God donʼt want nothing to do with a sinner like me but Iʼd marry you, sugar, Iʼd marry you. Any religion in the world Iʼd fucking marry you.

* * *

 Sugar,

Got a letter from my ma and Becca, say theyʼre doing okay. Say you ainʼt been around for Shabbos dinner for a while, the hell, sweetheart. Maʼs always got a plate set for you. You donʼt gotta stay away just on account I ainʼt there. I know you, think youʼre getting in the way, just another mouth to feed, but maʼd be tickled to see you. So do the damn dishes. Take out the trash. You know youʼre welcome to move in there if you want. Becca and Debbie might gripe but those girls shared a room for ages. I promised your ma Iʼd look after you. Donʼt like the idea of you in that drafty old tenement by yourself.

And you better be by yourself. Gets me all hot under the collar thinking of you with someone else in our bed. Can’t help it, sweetheart, I’m a jealous guy. Nights are lonely here, puts all sorts of filthy thoughts in my head.

* * *

You stupid, stubborn sumbitch. I get why you donʼt wanna move out. Itʼs home, ainʼt it? But youʼre my home, sweetheart. Homeʼs whoever you lay your pretty head, where I put my hands on you. Sure as hell ainʼt four walls and a leaky roof.

* * *

  
Youʼre goddamn beautiful.

Shut your mouth, sweetheart. I ainʼt there to hear you argue. Not that I got a chance in hell of winning, anyways. But I got the upper hand this time so youʼre gonna listen and listen good.

Youʼre the most goddamn beautiful thing I ever saw.

Day Pearl Harbor happened, day I knew this warʼd reach out and take me from you for good. You remember it, doll? Stark naked, whole room full of artists and easels all sketching me and I thought they were the dumbest bunch of chickenshits in the whole damn world. Cause there you were, sitting there with your brows all knit up and your little teeth biting at your lip like you do when you come like you ainʼt drawn me a thousand times before and you were so goddamn beautiful but there they were all just staring at me. Hey, you bastards. Hey look, you assholes. How can you all be so fucking blind. But Iʼm selfish and I didnʼt say a thing because youʼre so goddamn beautiful, sweetheart, and youʼre mine. The swells got their furs and their cadillacs but I got you, sweetheart. Youʼre all I got. Youʼre all I need.

Touch yourself, sweetheart. Want you to know how goddamn good you feel. You feel so good all up against me, sweetheart, your stretched-taut skin over your sharp little bones. I can press my face up against your heart, feel it beat white hot beneath your skin, suck your pink little tits, slide my fingers through your ribs like Iʼm a part of you, hold your quivering little heart in my two hands, sink right through until weʼre just one thing of blood and bone. You put your hand to your mouth and feel the hot wet heat of you, velvet little tongue, line of your spit soaked lips, how smooth and firm and goddamn tight you are. You get your fingers all good and wet for me, then you work them through your warm little hole and stick them up inside of you, fuck your pretty little cunt the way I would if I was there on a lazy summer Sunday and could take my time all nice and slow. I ainʼt there to show you how beautiful you are so you gotta do it for me.

* * *

I lost a man today, sweetheart.

Training accident. Stupid game. Guy went missing, they find him next morning three miles down river, drowned. Shit. It messed me up something awful, sweetheart. It messed me up bad.

I gotta come clean, sweetheart. I lied to you. Feel pretty damn bad about that. Old man McDaniels did his best for me in front of the draft board but we ainʼt married and my parents donʼt depend on me so much no more. Never thought I’d ever wish for that broken little body of yours.

I didnʼt enlist, I got the draft. Didn’t do it for da, didn’t do it for you. Fuck I wanted to run away and run away bad but you’d never love a coward and I ain’t nothing if I ain’t loving you. I lied to you. Didn’t feel so cut up about it before but if anything happens I bite the big one out here in some stupid friendly fire game gone wrong I want you to hear it from me. Ain’t no way I leave your side, sweetheart. Not now, not ever. TTEOTL.

**Author's Note:**

> "World War II may have been the last great age of the love letter. Love letters have been written since, but never on such a scale. Mail call for those in uniform and the daily postal delivery for those at home were cherished rituals of life. Those letters brought news of family, neighborhood gossip, confessions of loneliness and fear, expressions of sympathy from commanding officers for families whose young men were wounded or dead—the full spectrum of human emotion, but most of all, love."  
> \--Brokaw, Tom. The Greatest Generation Speaks: Letters and Reflections. Random House, New York, 1999. p 152.


End file.
